Autonomy’s Mike Lynch acquitted after US fraud trial introduced by HP

Former Autonomy chief govt Mike Lynch issued an announcement Thursday following his acquittal of legal fees, ending a 13-year authorized battle with Hewlett-Packard that turned considered one of Silicon Valley’s greatest fraud circumstances. He was accused of falsely inflating revenues on the UK startup forward of Autonomy’s $11 billion sale to HP in 2011.

Commenting on the acquittal, Lynch (pictured above, left, when he appeared at TechCrunch Disrupt) stated in his assertion: “I’m elated with as we speak’s verdict and grateful to the jury for his or her consideration to the information over the past ten weeks. My deepest thanks go to my authorized group for his or her tireless work on my behalf. I’m trying ahead to returning to the UK and getting again to what I like most: my household and innovating in my area.”

After a 12-week trial, the entrepreneur was cleared of 15 counts of fraud and conspiracy that had been introduced in opposition to him in relation to the 2011 acquisition.

The victory for Lynch is notable in gentle of the truth that within the US, in fiscal yr 2022, solely 0.4% of federal legal circumstances led to trial and acquittal, based on the Pew Analysis Heart, and solely 12% of all wire fraud prosecutions resulted in acquittal.

Christopher Morvillo and Brian Heberlig, authorized counsel for Lynch, added in an announcement: “We’re thrilled with the jury’s verdict, which displays a convincing rejection of the federal government’s profound overreach on this case. The proof introduced at trial demonstrated conclusively that Mike Lynch is harmless. This verdict closes the guide on a relentless 13-year effort to pin HP’s well-documented ineptitude on Dr Lynch.  Fortunately, the reality has lastly prevailed. We thank Dr Lynch for his belief all through this ordeal and hope that he can now return house to England to renew his life and proceed innovating.” 

Lynch, 58, was beforehand extradited to the US, and put beneath home arrest and 24-hour surveillance forward of the trial. He lengthy maintained he was scapegoated by HP, claiming it botched the acquisition of Autonomy, and later mismanaged the corporate’s software program belongings. 

Lynch made £500 million from the sale of Autonomy to HP. However solely a yr later, HP wrote down its funding by $8.8 billion, saying $5 billion of that write-down owed to practices employed by Autonomy’s earlier administration group that inflated Autonomy’s worth and misled potential patrons into believing the corporate was much more helpful.

Prosecutors accused Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain, Autonomy’s former vice chairman of finance, of illegally inflating revenues forward of the acquisition and hiding high-margin software program income inside unprofitable {hardware} gross sales.

Within the trial, Lynch efficiently argued that he had not been concerned in accounting and contract issues, as a substitute specializing in technical and advertising points.

Though unsuccessfully arguing that the case must be heard within the UK, resulting in his extradition, the US jury exonerated Lynch on all counts, together with Chamberlain, who was additionally on trial.

The US lawyer’s workplace in San Francisco stated: “We acknowledge and respect the decision. We wish to thank the jury for its attentiveness to the proof the federal government introduced on this case.”

Autonomy’s sale to HP was seen as a vindication of the UK’s booming tech scene, and the platform’s capacity to sift via unstructured databases was, on the time, considered as a approach for HP to rebuild its flat-lining {hardware} enterprise.

Lynch co-founded Autonomy in 1996 out of a specialist software program analysis group known as Cambridge Neurodynamics.

Awarded an OBE for companies to enterprise in 2006, Lynch turned a UK authorities adviser who sat on the boards of the BBC and the British Library, based the Invoke Capital VC, and invested in breakout cyber safety firm Darktrace.